Chapter 3

Path of the Eater

You are on the stairs, though you do not remember stepping onto them. They spiral upward and downward, stretching through impossible space. Something unseen draws you upward, something that tastes like copper on your tongue.

Reality pulses around you. Metallic. Alive. Movement flickers—quick and sharp—at the edges of your sight. You turn, and they are there: figures that should not exist, their limbs bending wrong, faces fluid as mercury. Blue-green light ripples across their forms, like sunlight through deep water, but harder. Colder. More precise.

The creatures notice you. Their heads tilt. A sound cuts through the silence—click, click, click—like obsidian knives against glass. Their approach is both fluid and broken, a dance of impossible angles. Their eyes catch the light, throwing it back at you in fractured patterns. Then comes the pressure against your mind: not words, but shapes, symbols, images, that slip from your grasp as soon as you try to catch them.

Who are you?

The question burns like frost. More shapes press against your consciousness, symbols that slice and fade, leaving ghost-wounds behind.

Why are you here?

They gather closer. Their chittering echoes off the rippling walls—a sound like grinding gears wrapped in silk. Their limbs twist into patterns that pull at something deep within you, something that recognizes their joy at your presence. You are their answer. Their revelation.

Then—shift.

Their faces crack. Curiosity bleeds into fear, sharp and sudden as a blade between ribs. They pull back, their movements jerky now, desperate. Metal scrapes against stone as they speak, their alien whispers rising and falling like broken glass in your ears.

You should not be here.

Erratic and broken, symbols splinter in your mind.

You do not belong.

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They retreat, but their eyes stay fixed on you. Accusing. Knowing. You reach out—a gesture of peace, of understanding—but they scatter like mercury dropped on stone. Their forms twist, reality bending around them until they are barely holding together. Blood wells in their eyes, thick and dark, tracking down faces that no longer make sense.

One steps forward. Its hand trembles as it reaches for you, then snaps back as if burned. A single word cuts through your mind, sharp enough to draw blood:

"Eater."

The word ignites something in you. Ancient. Hungry. Not yours, but woven into your marrow. The creatures scream—a symphony of clicking metal and breaking glass. They try to flee, but power surges through you, invisible chains dragging them back.

One lunges. Desperate. Terrified.

Your hand rises without thought. Your fingers curl around something essential, something inside it. The creature freezes. Horror twists its face into new geometries. Then—

Rupture.

Dark liquid pulses from its mouth. Veins blacken around its eyes, bulging, bursting. Its form collapses inward, folding into geometries that should not exist. The others watch, screaming, but they cannot look away. Cannot escape.

Power floods you. Warm. Raw. Natural as breathing.

The creature shudders one final time. What remains is barely matter—a quivering mass of flesh and possibility. The others stagger back, blood streaming from their eyes, that word echoing in their broken voices:

"Eater... Eater... Eater..."

Another attacks. Desperation made manifest. The force rises in you again, hungry and familiar. You reach out. The creature stops mid-air, its essence unraveling like torn silk. As it collapses, you feel its power flowing into you, filling spaces you never knew were empty.

The survivors flee upward, their movements fractured and wrong. All except one. Smaller than the others, it stays. Sorrow fills its bleeding eyes as it points toward the dark throne above. Its final message cuts deep:

"Is this what you are?"

The creature dissolves into mist. Shadows curl around the throne, pulling you forward. The power inside you resonates with the darkness, harmonizing with a vision of yourself seated there. Empty. Cold. Complete.

You kneel before the throne. The stone surface reflects a truth you do not want to see: yourself, but wrong. This version of you wears shadows like a crown. Your eyes—winter stone, devoid of light. Power radiates from your future self, but something vital is missing. Something warm.

The reflection's lips move. The words come like ice in your veins:

To rule is to consume.

Shadows tighten their grip. The alien whispers persist: Eater... Eater... But another voice cuts through, warm and clear as summer light. Whatever happens, you're my brother. Cyra's words, a spark against the endless dark.

You stare at your reflection. At the throne. At the hollow victory it promises. Power pulses in your blood, demanding action. But doubt holds you still, suspended between hunger and humanity.

In that hesitation, reality fractures.

The throne dissolves. The shadows retreat. You stand alone on the stairs, silence pressing against your skin. The vision fades like morning frost, leaving only the cold touch of the Veilstone beneath your palm and Cyra's voice, steady and real.

But the whispers remain, etched into your bones:

Eater.