Joah ran his fingers over his backpack as he walked. The tunnel stretched ahead in silence, no lamps, no torches — only thin slivers of light filtering from cracks above, their warm yellow glow marking the passage of time. He had learned to read light like others read the sky; in this place, even something as simple as time felt like a privilege.

His hand brushed against cold metal, and he allowed himself a small, fleeting smile. The system responded, painting his Ars objects in a red gradient heat, their outlines crisp in the void. Nothing missing. His dagger lay secured at his side, far more lethal than the standard-issue knife the academy had provided.

At first, he had hesitated to use it. Long weapons suited him better. His hands had once been his weapons of choice, and on the streets of Baurous, he had learned the basics — how to strike, where to break, the rhythm of a fight. Knives were common there, wielded by those who understood that the shortest distance between life and death was a single sharp edge. But Joah’s own aspirations had been different, inherited from his father.

He could still see his father in the rare occasions when words about theology and the world gave way to something more practical — the woods, the crisp air, the quiet patience of a lesson. His father had preferred the rod. A weapon of strategy, he had called it. Most saw it as simple force, a blunt instrument, but to those who understood, it was an extension of the arm, a thing that demanded knowledge of both the body and the mind.

Joah sighed, shaking his head. Instinctively, he braced himself for Goad’s inevitable intrusion — some mocking remark about sentimentality, about weapons, about how little it all mattered in the end. But there was nothing. Just silence.

Strange. There were moments like this, rare and unsettling, where the voice in his head went quiet. He should have welcomed it. He should have relished it. And yet, the absence of Goad felt wrong, as if a vital part of him had gone missing. Before the awakening, he had been alone in his own mind. Now, solitude felt foreign.

At times, he had considered surrender. Just letting the darkness take him, letting Goad overtake his thoughts and his body, letting it all slip away. But every time that abyss beckoned, his grandmother’s voice pulled him back. His father’s lessons held him steady. They were his anchor, the last fragile threads tying him to himself.

He would not lose. And just as the thought settled, the voice returned, crawling back into the corners of his skull like a thing with too many limbs, too pleased with itself.

‘Thinking a lot, my boy, uh? Well, I’m curious — truly curious, kid. Look ahead. Use the system. There’s only one way out, and you can’t go back. Ah, I am curious! Will you give up? Kill it? Run? Bow to me? Tell me!’

Joah stilled. Ahead of him, bathed in the red glow of the system, was a figure. It moved steadily toward him, its outline sharp. A single word burned in his vision, “common human.”.

A cultist. Each step brought it closer. His grip tightened around his dagger until his fingers ached. The choices lay before him, stark and merciless. To fight meant to kill. To flee meant leading a pursuer straight to his only escape. And to give up? No. That was never an option.

He was exhausted, but adrenaline smothered the fatigue, forcing his body into readiness. One chance. That was all he had — one strike, one clean ambush. His veins throbbed from the overuse of Ars, his muscles burned from escape after escape, and rest was a luxury buried beneath stone and darkness.

The shadows took him in, folding around his form like an old promise. He pressed his back to the wall, his breath slow, measured. He would wait. The cultist would pass. Then, the knife would find its mark.

‘Ah, this will be delicious, kid. Give me a good show, won’t you? Ah! You’ll learn the hard way today.’

The figure drew closer. Five steps. His heartbeat surged. His breath deepened. Sweat warmed the dagger in his palm. Four steps. He bent his knees slightly, his body a coiled spring. Three. The blade rose to chest level. Two. The figure stopped.

Joah’s fingers tightened. He could hear the breath beneath the mask, the faint rustle of fabric shifting over flesh. The heat beneath those robes must have been unbearable, he thought absently, the owl-like mask casting dim shadows from the weak light above. The questions were pressed in. ‘Who was their Mother? Why did they want to sacrifice him? Why him?’

One step. His body tensed. A fraction more and he would strike — silent, precise. A quick thrust to the neck, clean and sure. Over in an instant. And then—

A leg slammed into his stomach. A crushing, brutal force. The breath was ripped from his lungs. The dagger tumbled from his grip, metal clattering against stone. The shadows abandoned him.

Joah gasped. His body folded inward, trying — desperately — to draw breath. His vision swam, saliva slipping from his lips, his eyes wide with shock. The pain hadn’t even settled before another impact.

Leather met his face in a merciless arc. His skull snapped sideways, and the world lost shape, lost color — only black and red remained. The taste of iron pooled on his tongue. The tunnel spun. Sound warped, muffled, then too loud, then distant again. A droning buzz hummed in his ears.

Footsteps. Closer. He couldn’t move. His limbs refused to answer, as if his body had already decided it was over. The cultist would take him, drag him into whatever madness they worshipped. And perhaps that was fine, as long as he could breathe again.

Then, another kick. His back slammed against the wall. His backpack crunched against his ribs, shoving the air from his lungs. Darkness pressed in. Goad’s laughter rang, sharp and cruel, curling around the edges of Joah’s fading mind. And somewhere, beyond the pain, beyond the black, the voice of his captor murmured in reverence:

"Oh, Mother we love. Oh, Mother we serve. I, your son, have caught another precious flesh for your sacrifice, Mother."

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Darkness. Weightless, sinking — then a jolt. Pain. Something sharp, something distant. His eyes snapped open, black as the abyss. A sudden, terrible clarity. He was being dragged. His left leg scraped against the rough tunnel floor. The pressure. The slow, methodical pull.

It clicked. Instinct took over before thought could catch up. His right leg shot forward, slamming into the figure’s knee. A grunt. A stumble. His body was freed. He rolled back, the burning pain twisting through his ribs, grinding his teeth against the urge to cry out.

The cultist gasped but recovered fast, kicking at him — Joah barely twisted out of the way, using the wall to propel himself forward. His fist connected, the impact sending a dull shock up his arm. His vision flared red. His dagger — there. He saw it.

Another attack. He evaded, rolled, snatched the dagger mid-motion. His mind flickered, consciousness slipping, drowning again. No. He drove the blade into his own arm. Pain. Hot, electric. Adrenaline poured through him, forcing his blood awake.

The shadows surged. The figure swung again — missed. Joah was already moving. A sharp inhale. A single strike. His dagger sank into the cultist’s throat. The figure staggered, clutching at the wound, choking, hands pressed against the gushing dark.

Then, a murmur — hoarse, reverent. Smoke curled from the wound, thin white light pulsing from within. "Oh, Mother, I sacrifice myself to your love. Give me your love and send the children that watch at your feet in my place. Oh, Mother, I love, forgive your son, who has failed in his duty."

Joah narrowed his eyes. A new sound. Clicking. Sharp, metallic. Behind him. Too close. He moved.

‘Oh, my dear, my real Joah! Oh, how I’ve missed you, my boy!' Goad’s voice coiled in his ear, thick with pleasure. ‘Stain? Flaw? This — this — is your true power. Not the shadows. Cold as the night. Merciless. Pragmatic. Smart. Hurry now, let me in while the other is still asleep. Hurry!’

Joah didn’t answer. His ears strained, picking apart the sounds. Metal against stone. Daggers. Many of them. He turned his gaze to the body at his feet. The mask came off. A face — barely human, features blurred, eroded. No time to think. The blade slid across flesh. Blood spilled warm over his hand. He pressed his palm to the wound, feeling the faint pulse of energy seep into his veins.

‘Ah! The Numbra art of recovering Ars! What a delightful sign! The other idiot refuses to use it. If he had killed that old man, he wouldn’t have run. He would have slaughtered the cultists. But what did he do? He ran. Coward. Idiot! But you, my boy, you are my dear Joah.’

His breathing steadied. The pain burned, but he ignored it. There was no time to waste. He closed his eyes. The shadows stretched ahead, deep and endless. He stepped forward into the void, felt it take him in, and pulled him further.

And there, within the dark, Goad waited — floating, a grotesque phantom of a worm, his face both mocking and adoring. Joah didn’t stop. He let the shadows drag him onward, waited as the distant sounds faded.

When he opened his eyes, he stood at an intersection of tunnels. Thin beams of light crisscrossed the ceiling, enough to reveal his state. Blood — his and theirs — smeared across his uniform. Dirt clung to his skin, his clothes torn, his backpack barely holding together.

And the pain. It had settled into something worse. He swallowed the taste of iron and forced himself forward.

‘See?’ Goad’s laughter slithered around his thoughts. ‘So much easier when you let the darkness take you. Pity, truly, because when that pathetic other Joah wakes up, he’ll forget. Even if I whisper the truth, even if I gift him the knowledge of his own bloodline, he’ll deny it. Ah! Pitiful!’

Joah said nothing. Goad’s voice clawed at the edges of his mind, desperate, pathetic. Always craving attention. Always scheming. But it would never have him. Never take root in his blood. The Numbras knew darkness — felt it deeper than any other lineage. And Goad? Goad was something lesser, something small. A writhing parasite gnawing at the scraps of something it could never truly understand.

His mind stayed fixed on pragmatism. Not a thought wasted on the voice, on his aching body, on the fact that he had just killed another man. There was only the next step. The next breath. Escape. Rest. Nothing else mattered.

He moved forward, letting instinct guide him, taking the right turn where the tunnel sloped downward. The air felt heavy, thick with the sensation of being watched. The chase wasn’t over. Not yet. Sparse, dying lamps flickered above, their dull orange glow marking the miners’ path. Joah had seen them before, near the abandoned chambers — wooden beams, rusting carts, the remnants of something once functional, now forgotten. But ahead, something else.

A hole in the ground. A rope, hanging. A tunnel leading deeper. The wind. Warm. But wrong. It dragged an involuntary shiver down his spine. He turned. Countless thin legs, clicking against stone. A wave of movement, too many limbs, too many eyes reflecting the dim light.

Spiders. Too many. He couldn’t fight them. Not like this. No hesitation. His dagger flashed — two quick slashes, tearing strips from his uniform. He wrapped the fabric around his palms and jumped, gripping the rope tight. The impact sent a shock through his arms, pain blooming instantly.

He glanced up. A sea of tiny orbs stared back at him, unblinking. The creatures clustered at the edge, legs stabbing the ground, but they did not follow.

He exhaled. His hands burned. The rope seared into his flesh, the fabric barely enough to shield him. The descent dragged on, the tunnel below consuming him in darkness. There was no ground in sight, just blackness stretching beneath him.

The impact sent a jolt through his legs, nearly breaking them. He collapsed, fingers digging into damp grass. He forced himself up, breath ragged, scanning his surroundings.

A sliver of light. A gap in the stone. Something pulled at him, urging him forward. A whisper at the base of his skull, not Goad, not the voice he knew — but something new. Joah pressed one eye to the crack, closing the other.

At first, all he saw was light. A white, ethereal glow swallowing the space beyond. No shapes, no depth — just radiance. Then his vision adjusted. And he saw her. The most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

Her curls tumbled black as night, coiling over smooth, pale skin that shimmered with a soft pink hue. Her eyes, blue and white, shifting like the sky before a storm. A delicate crown rested on her head, a single blue emerald catching the light. She sat with effortless grace, legs stretched before her, clad in a dress of pure white silk.

She smiled. Something inside Joah burned. A fire, sudden and consuming, coiling up from his core. A need. To kneel. To serve. To worship.

He activated the system. Read. Analyze. Understand. Nothing. She laughed. It was smooth, effortless, and musical, like fingertips dancing over the strings of a harp, like the hush of water over polished stone. The sound slid into his ears, into his bones, into the space between thoughts.

Her gaze found him. "Look what we have here." Her voice was warm, honeyed with amusement. "A lovely boy creeping on a beautiful woman like me. Come closer, dear. Let me see you."

She tilted her head slightly, eyes gleaming. "A recent awakening… I can feel it. The shadow, the darkness inside you."

She smiled wider, lips the color of crushed violets. "Lovely."