2026-07-03 09:29:35
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Doubt
"Something beyond control."The sentence froze in the air. I remained silent for quite a long time. The tips of my boots stood stiffly on the floor, while my eyes never left the bluish-white glow of the crystal in the center of the room.I tried to imagine the various possibilities in my head. Was it the remnants of a combat fleet from a past regime's military? Was it an entity immune to every weapon ever created? Or something far more ancient, more destructive, and completely beyond common sense?However, I quickly crushed all those imaginations. Speculating wouldn't save anyone down here. As a mechanic who lived by dismantling and reassembling scrap, I believed in data and measurable parameters more than wild imagination.I shifted my position slowly, letting my stiff shoulder muscles relax a bit. I decided to stop guessing.My question shifted. My focus turned to problem-solving. If this protective seal was weakening, then action had to be taken to strengthen it."What must I do?"
Time Has Run Out
"I brought you here... because our time has run out."The sentence did not simply fade away. It hung there, swirling inside my mind like thick smoke in an unventilated room. The circular chamber lined with pale metal plunged back into an extraordinary silence.I stood still, holding my breath for several seconds. The tips of my fingers inside my gloves still felt numb. My brain actively refused to immediately process and accept the weight of those words at face value.Throughout my journey penetrating the layers above, too many things had tried to manipulate my perception, twist my logic, and test the limits of my sanity. Even my consciousness screamed at me not to drop my guard.It was as if I already knew where those words were leading. My instincts—forged by plasma cannons, arcblade strikes, and the cruelty of the Nexus Imperium—fiercely rejected accepting anything this crystal was about to offer."If your time really has run out..." My voice broke the silence, sounding raspy, hars
The Voice
"You have finally arrived..."The words carved themselves directly into my mind. The echoes of the voice slowly faded, leaving behind a silence far denser than before. The circular chamber fell quiet once again. There was only me, the lingering traces of my breath, and the crystal floating in the center of the room.I didn't lower my guard right away. I still gripped the arcblade cylinder in my right hand tightly, my thumb hovering over the plasma trigger button. My eyes narrowed sharply, staring unblinkingly at the surface of the crystal as it emitted a bluish-white glow.My journey down layer after layer of the Monument had been filled with illusions and spatial manipulations that shredded my sanity. I forced myself not to immediately trust the soothing sense of peace that was currently flowing into my chest.This could just be another trick from this place, I warned myself internally, refusing to drop my guard.I took a step with extreme caution, maintaining my distance from the cr
The Cage
The bluish-white light radiated softly from behind the newly opened gap. I stood right at the edge of the giant cage, frozen with bated breath. The muscles in both my legs tensed hard, focusing the flow of Veil energy in preparation to respond to any form of threat that might dart out from the darkness of the gap. I waited.One breath. Two breaths. Three breaths."Where are you?" I whispered sharply, tightly gripping the hilt of the arcblade that felt cold through my gloves. "Show yourself now. I won't back down a single step."No attack ambushed me. No traps were suddenly triggered from beneath the floor. There were no roars of wild beasts, organic growls, or deafening hums of destructive machines. There was only a silence that slowly seeped out from the gap.Yet, this silence did not calm my soul at all. This silence instead felt thousands of times more oppressive and suffocating to my lungs than the entire journey that brought me down through the various layers above."Are you just
Boundary
The dense red mist enveloping the circular structure in the center of the courtyard slowly thinned, swept away by a vortex of wind born from the movement of its core. I narrowed my eyes sharply, enduring the continuous heat radiation burning my face. The silhouette, previously obscured by thick shadows, now slowly materialized into a physical form, growing ever clearer before my eyes.The structure towered upwards, piercing the ceiling, resembling a giant cage. Dozens of massive magnetic rings spun around it, rotating on three different axes. These rings generated a centrifugal force shield that locked its central axis with immense power. I could see flashes of red lightning arcing fiercely between the metal joints, containing a pressure that was incredibly extreme.It was as if this machine was keeping something tightly locked inside.I stared at the energy conduits injecting red power into the cage. Everything flowed inward; not a single drop of power was being channeled out."It's
Turning Point
A faint, pulsing red light swept across my face as I stepped through the circular hatch. The cloaked figure followed close behind me, letting the gate rotate shut.The air in this area felt completely different. There was no longer the silence or sense of emptiness from the previous layers.Before long, a low-frequency hum resonated, causing my teeth to chatter incessantly. The walls around us were no longer static. The lines of energy on the metal plates radiated streams of red light, no longer waiting for my footsteps to ignite."This place... is awake," I muttered, feeling the floor vibrations penetrate the soles of my boots. I gripped my arcblade, my knuckles tightening against its metallic surface.All my life, I had been used to recognizing the sound of an engine newly booted up versus one being forced to run at full capacity. This Monument had crossed that threshold; it was no longer in a passive initialization phase. This place was fully active.I was no longer just an i
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