The city lay silent, swallowed by the thick night fog. The streets outside were empty, blanketed in an eerie stillness that seemed almost unnatural. Even the distant hum of machinery and life that usually persisted in the background of Evergarde had faded, leaving only the occasional creak of shifting pipes and the muffled echo of distant footsteps.

Silas stood in his dimly lit room, his breath slow, steady, controlled. The air was heavy, thick with anticipation. He glanced down at himself—his new gear fit snugly, the dark fabric blending into the gloom. Both daggers rested at his waist, their weight reassuring, while the penknife sat concealed within his sleeve, a hidden edge ready to be drawn at a moment’s notice. He flexed his fingers, feeling the slight resistance of the gloves. Everything was in place.

His Phenomena Points had exceeded ten thousand, a staggering amount compared to what he once had. His recent encounters—learning, fighting, adapting—had caused an unnatural surge in comprehension, pushing his limits further than ever before. Even after the points he had spent recently, a vast reserve remained. More than enough.

"I’m ready."

The words echoed in his mind, steady and resolute. Yet beneath them, a quiet unease stirred. This wasn’t just another step forward—it was a crossing, a true shift into the unknown. Once he began, there would be no turning back.

He took a deep breath, forcing his nerves into submission.

"System, monitor me. I’m initiating the promotion."

The response flickered in his mind, instant and emotionless.

[Acknowledged. Monitoring activated.]

Silas closed his eyes and reached inward, toward the very core of his being, where the Chronicle had settled and matured. It was no longer the unstable, fledgling thing it once was. It pulsed now, steady, strong—demanding to evolve.

He expressed his intent.

The moment he did, the world lurched.

A violent pull, sudden and absolute, ripped him from reality.

His stomach twisted, his limbs seized, and for a fleeting moment, he felt as though he were falling—not through space, but through something far more alien. Reality peeled away in layers, twisting and distorting, colors bleeding into each other like ink dissolving in water. The dim candlelight of his room stretched into elongated spirals, the walls folded inward, and then—

Everything snapped.

Silas staggered, his boots scraping against uneven stone. His breath came ragged, his pulse hammering in his ears. The shift had stopped, but the air felt wrong, thick with something that crawled against his skin.

He opened his eyes.

He stood in a vast, abandoned institution, its towering gothic architecture stretching into a sky of endless gray. The building was in ruins—crumbling walls, shattered windows, and twisting, unnatural growths that pulsed with an eerie light. The architecture itself seemed to reject logic; pillars bent at unnatural angles, hallways stretched too far, and doors led to places that should not exist.

A heavy presence loomed in the air, pressing against his senses like an unseen weight. The very walls seemed to breathe, lined with scribbled runes and shifting, unreadable text, as though something had desperately tried to record knowledge that refused to be understood.

Then, a voice—low, ancient, and eerily distant, as if carried through layers of time itself—whispered into his mind.

"Find the White Door… or be forgotten."

The words slithered through his thoughts, neither hostile nor kind—just a statement, cold and absolute. It carried the weight of something that had seen countless souls before him, something that had watched and judged.

Silas stiffened, his breath slowing. The voice was gone as quickly as it had come, but the warning lingered.

Silas felt his heart quicken, his survival instincts flaring.

"Calm down. You expected this."

He had known the Astral Realm would be nothing like reality. And yet… experiencing it firsthand was entirely different. There was an oppressive, almost sentient silence, as if the very fabric of this place was watching him, waiting.

He exhaled sharply and pressed his back against a cracked stone wall.

"System, still functional?"

The familiar text flickered in his mind, and relief washed over him.

[System is operational. Passive scanning enabled at minimal point consumption.]

Good. That was one less concern.

Silas activated Mimicry Echo: Blur Trace and Silent Steps, his presence melting into the surrounding darkness. He moved carefully, each step soundless against the stone. His eyes darted across the ruins, scanning for movement, for signs of life—or worse, something that had never been alive to begin with.

For the first time since he had arrived in this world, Silas was in a place where he truly had no control. No city laws, no predictable human behavior—just the unknown, waiting to consume those too weak to survive it.

And yet, despite the unease crawling under his skin, a small, dark thought settled in his mind.

"This is what I wanted."

The real test begins now.

The air in the ruined institution was thick with decay and whispers. It wasn’t just the scent of damp stone or rotting wood—it was something deeper, something woven into the very fabric of this place. The stillness pressed against Silas like unseen hands, urging him to turn back. But there was no turning back.

A sharp pulse ran through his mind.

[Warning: Presence detected. You are not alone.]

Silas froze, a chill running down his spine. The System rarely issued warnings like that. His grip tightened around the dagger at his waist as his instincts sharpened. He strained his hearing, his vision adjusting to the flickering, dying light that bled through shattered windows.

And then, he saw them.

They lurked in the corridors, in the spaces where the light refused to reach. Their bodies were hunched and grotesque, moving in slow, unnatural motions. Their elongated skulls pulsed as if their very thoughts were alive, twisting beneath veiny, stretched skin.

Numerous bulging eyes covered their heads—no symmetry, no order—each pupil moving independently, twitching, scanning, searching for prey. They exuded a constant low whisper, an eerie, mind-scraping noise that wasn’t spoken aloud but seeped directly into consciousness, like a thousand voices murmuring just beyond understanding.

Silas’ breath hitched.

[Analyzing…]

The System’s text appeared in his mind, but he barely noticed, his attention locked onto the creatures as they slithered forward, their deformed limbs bending at unnatural angles.

[Hostile Entities Identified: The Seething Watchers.]

[Primary Threat: Cursed Gaze—Direct eye contact induces mental instability or paralysis.]

[Secondary Threat: Seers perceive more than sight. They are drawn to thoughts, movement, and intent.]

Silas felt a slow, creeping horror settle into his bones.

"They can sense thoughts?"

That explained why his heart pounded harder, why his skin prickled with an unnatural sensation—as if something was grazing the edges of his mind, testing for weakness.

The System’s next message was blunt.

[Solution: Rupture eardrums or block auditory input.]

The whispering wasn’t just background noise—it was an invasive force, worming into the mind, breaking down reason.

Silas clenched his jaw. He wasn’t desperate enough to rupture his own eardrums—not yet. Instead, he tore a strip of cloth from his inner sleeve, rolling the fabric and stuffing it deep into his ears.

Instantly, the whispers dulled.

Not gone, but muffled. His thoughts felt clearer, his sense of self more intact.

He forced a slow exhale, his muscles still coiled with tension. Avoid their gaze. Avoid their thoughts. Avoid their movement.

"Mimicry Echo: Silent Steps."

His presence diminished, his body melting into the shadows like a fleeting specter. His heartbeat slowed, his breathing steadied.

"Mimicry Echo: Blur Trace."

His astral signature vanished, leaving behind only false trails, ensuring that if something tried to track him, it would be led in the wrong direction.

The System sent another notification:

[New strategy implemented: System will pass detected threats directly into consciousness. Avoid looking. Avoid thinking.]

A silent acknowledgment passed between Silas and the System. He would rely entirely on the System’s scans to navigate, trusting its silent guidance rather than his own senses.

Slowly, he moved—his footsteps completely soundless against the cracked stone floor. The shadows seemed deeper here, swallowing what little remained of the institution’s sanity.

The corridors twisted, bending at impossible angles. The walls were lined with scribbled runes, shifting, writhing, as if something had tried to record knowledge that refused to be understood. Silas felt them shifting in his periphery, but he refused to look directly.

A faint chittering noise echoed ahead.

He halted, muscles tensing.

[Two Seething Watchers nearby. Do not move.]

He didn’t dare breathe.

The creatures slithered closer, their grotesque forms brushing against the walls. Their oversized, vein-riddled heads pulsed, a disturbing movement—as if the thoughts inside were struggling to break free.

One of them stopped.

Silas felt a crawling sensation in his mind, like unseen fingers scraping against the edges of his thoughts. He forced his mind blank, thinking of nothing, focusing only on the silence, on the System’s passive scans feeding him information.

The creature lingered, twitching. Its many pupils contracted, dilated, shifted, each one searching.

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And then—

It moved on.

Silas swallowed hard. His hands were damp with sweat, but he did not let himself shudder.

Not yet.

He pressed forward, deeper into the forsaken ruin, where the corridors grew narrower, and the darkness grew alive.

There were things here—things that should not be.

Silas pressed forward, deeper into the forsaken ruin, where the corridors grew narrower, and the darkness felt alive—not in the way shadows flickered in the wind, but as if it watched, waiting.

The air was thick, stagnant, heavy with the scent of damp stone and something more unnatural, something that lingered in the very walls. What little light existed came only from the gray, fog-covered sky seeping in through shattered windows and cracks in the high, crumbling ceilings. It was barely enough to make out the shifting outlines of the ruined institution, casting the world in an eerie half-darkness where shadows bled into each other, distorting perception.

The Seething Watchers moved like nightmares, their grotesque forms gliding through the corridors, their elongated skulls twitching with every whisper. Their veiny, swollen heads pulsed in slow, sickening rhythms, their skin stretching as if something writhed beneath. Countless bulging eyes shifted independently, scanning their surroundings—not just with sight, but with something far worse.

Their whispers were ceaseless. A chorus of hushed, fragmented voices that clawed at the edges of thought, unraveling focus, breaking down reason. The deeper Silas ventured, the more their presence gnawed at his mind, pressing against the barriers of his consciousness like unseen fingers prying at a locked door.

He kept his breathing slow, his steps lighter than a falling feather.

The System pulsed in his mind, mapping their erratic movement patterns, predicting when they would shift, pause, or turn.

Every move he made was calculated, precise—one mistake, and he would be seen, heard, or worse, sensed.

Yet, despite his caution, there were close calls.

A Watcher slithered past a collapsed doorway, its many eyes twitching unnaturally, searching for something unseen.

Silas pressed himself against the wall, his heart hammering.

The creature stopped.

For a breathless moment, it hovered there, its head pulsing, the flesh stretching as if struggling to contain whatever thoughts festered within it.

Then, it twitched violently, all its eyes swiveling toward the space beside him—inches from where he stood.

The whispers surged. A low, grating murmur spilled from its form, a sound that wasn’t truly a sound, but something that slithered directly into the mind. A probing thought. A testing hunger.

Silas felt its awareness brush against him. A flicker of recognition—or was it just his paranoia?

His fingers tightened around the hilt of his dagger. If it turned toward him, he would have to act.

But then—it shifted away.

The Watcher lurched forward, its massive head pulsating, and continued down the corridor, leaving only the echo of its presence behind.

Silas let out a silent exhale, forcing his pulse to steady.

"Too close."

The air was thick with rot, the scent of damp stone and something far worse—something old, something wrong.

Silas crouched low, his form blending into the broken ruins as he watched the creature slither past. A Seething Watcher, its grotesque, veiny skull pulsing like a dying heart, its mass of bulging, disjointed eyes twitching in all directions, searching, hunting.

It exuded whispers, a maddening chorus of fragmented voices scratching at the edges of his mind.

He had to act. Quick. Precise. Soundless.

Silas activated Mimicry Echo: Silent Steps—his presence fading, his movements melting into the gloom. The Watcher halted, sensing nothing.

He moved. Mimicry Echo: Edge flicker applied to the blade of dagger. A breath of steel cutting through stagnant air. The dagger sank into its pulsing throat.

The Watcher shuddered, a grotesque, gurgling sound escaping its shifting mouths—but no whisper came.

Silas had silenced it before the thought could manifest.

He twisted the blade, severing the pulsing tendrils beneath its veined flesh. Its massive skull throbbed violently, as if resisting death—but it was already too late.

With Mimicry Echo: Blur Trace, he erased the evidence, distorting his astral signature as he dragged the twitching corpse into the shadows, ensuring no trace remained.

Then—a flicker of movement.

Another Watcher approached.

Silas stilled, his heartbeat steady but his muscles coiled like a predator in wait.

The creature passed inches from him.

Its presence was overwhelming—a walking mass of sight and sound, a grotesque abomination of vision and whispers. Its many pupils contracted and dilated erratically, sweeping over the space just beyond where Silas stood.

He did not breathe.

The whispers itched at his skull, pressing, probing, seeking a crack in his focus.

And then—it turned.

In one smooth, bladed motion, Silas struck like a phantom.

Mimicry Echo: Edge Flicker activated.

His dagger became sharper, faster— A quick slash tore through the pulsing tendrils at the base of its skull. A precise thrust to the temple ended its struggle before it could react.

The Watcher lurched, its body spasming in an unnatural, inhuman way, its many eyes rolling violently in its final moments before going still.

Silas withdrew his dagger, watching as the thing’s form collapsed, its whispers fading into nothing.

A moment passed.

Then another.

He scanned the corridor. No movement. No response.

The Seething Watchers were powerful, but they were not invincible—at least, not against something faster, something deadlier.

But this was not a place to hunt.

This was a place to escape.

Silas moved further into the ruins, his surroundings growing more structured, more purposeful.

Then he saw them.

Books.

Scattered across broken wooden desks, piled against rotting bookshelves, half-buried beneath the rubble—ancient tomes, their pages crumbling at the edges, their ink smudged by time.

A library.

Even with the decay, it still held the remnants of what it once was—a place of knowledge. A place of research.

"This was no ordinary institution."

His fingers brushed over the surface of a faded, leather-bound book, the title long erased. The pages were filled with symbols, foreign text, strange diagrams that made his head ache just from glancing at them.

"System, extract and scan."

A pulse of blue flickered in his mind.

[Extracting… Deciphering partial text…]

[Institution Identified: The Orphic Athenaeum]

[Primary Study: The Astral Abyss]

[Notes Recovered: Multiple warnings against deep exploration of the Astral Abyss.]

[Observation: Astral Abyss is vast, layered, and unpredictable. Deeper layers contain entities beyond comprehension.]

[Power System: Institution scholars were called 'Watchers.' Their abilities relied on rituals and glyph-based invocations.]

Silas’ eyes narrowed.

"Astral Abyss…"

So they didn’t call it the Astral Realm—they called it something else. And they feared it.

The further they went, the less they understood.

And whatever knowledge they uncovered, it destroyed them.

He could feel the unease settle in his bones. Whatever had happened to the Watchers of the Orphic Athenaeum, their legacy had been reduced to ruins and whispers.

Perhaps they ventured too deep.

Perhaps they found something they shouldn’t have.

Or perhaps… something found them first.

A new System notification flashed in his mind.

[Warning: Time Running Short. Promotion Instability Increasing.]

His pulse quickened. He had spent too much time searching, speculating.

"No more delays."

If the White Door existed anywhere, it would be here, buried beneath the forgotten knowledge of those who failed before him.

With one last glance at the decayed books, he turned away and pressed deeper into the ruined institution—searching for the White Door before time ran out.

With one last glance at the decayed books, Silas turned away, his mind still heavy with the revelations of the Orphic Athenaeum. The Astral Abyss, the forgotten Watchers, the warnings—all of it led to a single conclusion.

"They feared what was below."

But now was not the time to dwell. The White Door was his priority.

Silas moved swiftly yet cautiously, navigating the twisting corridors with the System passively scanning his surroundings. The deeper he ventured, the more warped the architecture became—hallways bent at unnatural angles, doorways led to dead ends or looped back on themselves, and the once-solid floors seemed to shift underfoot if stared at for too long.

The Seething Watchers still lurked, but he had learned their patterns—where they hesitated, where their senses flickered, how to move unseen.

After what felt like hours of silent navigation, a new System alert flickered in his mind.

[Anomaly Detected: Sealed Section of Institution Found]

[Unnatural Reality Distortion Present]

Silas stopped before a half-buried doorway, the entrance choked by collapsed beams and rubble. It wasn’t supposed to be accessible—not anymore.

But something behind it called to him.

Carefully, he cleared just enough debris to squeeze through, emerging into a sealed-off classroom, untouched by time yet utterly unnatural.

The moment he stepped inside, his breath hitched.

The space felt... wrong.

The classroom was preserved, unlike the ruin surrounding it. Desks and chairs stood perfectly aligned, their wood unstained by decay. The walls bore no cracks, no signs of age. And yet, it was silent—a void of sound, as if the entire room had been severed from existence.

At its center stood the White Door.

It was featureless, smooth, with an unsettling clarity that made it feel out of place, even in this distorted reality. It did not shimmer, did not glow, yet its presence pressed against Silas like an unseen weight.

He took a step forward—

And stopped.

Something was here.

A presence.

He shifted his gaze slightly, and his stomach tightened.

It stood at the far end of the room—motionless.

Unlike the Seething Watchers, this entity did not move, did not whisper, did not even breathe.

It was tall, statuesque, its body wrapped in tattered ceremonial robes, its elongated head crowned with twisted bone-like protrusions. Countless eyes covered its face and body—but they were all closed.

A thin layer of dust coated its form, as if it had stood there for centuries, undisturbed.

The System flashed a quiet warning.

[Caution: Unknown Entity Present]

[Status: Dormant]

[Threat Level: Extreme]

Silas’ fingers tensed around the hilt of his dagger. His instincts screamed at him—this thing was different.

Unlike the Watchers, it did not seek, did not search.

But it was guarding the door.

If he moved recklessly, he knew—without a doubt—that it would awaken.

"I can’t fight this."

He knew it as surely as he knew his own limits. Even without seeing its full capabilities, the sheer presence it exuded in stillness was enough.

But that didn’t mean he was trapped.

He took a slow, steady breath and activated Mimicry Echo: Silent Steps and Blur Trace, suppressing his presence to the absolute minimum.

Then, he studied the room.

Every inch of it. Every shadow, every chair, every blind spot in the creature’s field.

His gaze flicked across the dust on the floor, the untouched desks, the spaces where the air did not seem as thick.

And he saw it—a precise path.

A way to move without disturbing the air, without shifting the dust, without triggering even the slightest change in the unnatural balance of this room.

Carefully, methodically, he moved.

* One step at a time.

* No sudden shifts. No hesitation.

* No stray thoughts that might betray his presence.

The entity remained still.

Its countless closed eyes did not stir.

Silas reached the White Door.

He lifted his hand—

And placed his palm against its surface.

The moment his skin met the door, the world shattered.

The classroom, the entity, the ruin itself—all of it peeled away like a fragile illusion, dissolving into the abyss.

There was no sensation of falling, no transition—only a sudden nothingness, a weightless void that stretched endlessly in all directions.

The moment Silas’ palm met the White Door, reality collapsed.

A cold, weightless sensation swallowed him whole, pulling him into a void without sound, without air, without direction. It was not falling, nor drifting—it was simply being erased.

And in that instant—he and the door vanished.

The sealed-off classroom stood in silence once more.

But something had changed.

The air, once still and undisturbed, trembled.

A faint shift, almost imperceptible—until the dormant entity at the far end of the room began to stir.

Its many closed eyes—eyes that had remained shut for centuries, perhaps longer—quivered.

Then, one by one, they slightly opened, revealing glimpses of something far beyond human comprehension.

A deep, resonant whisper scraped through the still air, a voice that did not belong to the material world.

"Another one who dives into the abyss for knowledge…"

The eyes did not fully open.

The being did not move.

And then—just as suddenly as it had stirred—it fell silent once more, retreating into its timeless, patient watch.