Chapter 28: Living, Dead, Living Dead
The world turned white.
Not bright.
Not warm.
Simply...
White.
An endless canvas stretched beyond the horizon, swallowing every sense of direction.
Yunxia stood alone.
"..."
Silence.
She lowered her head.
A single drop of black ink slid from the corner of her eye.
It struck the white floor.
Ripples spread outward.
Instead of disappearing...
The ink crawled across the ground like a living creature before climbing the distant wall.
Letters slowly emerged.
READ THE WRITING ON THE WALL
Yunxia frowned.
"...What?"
The sentence melted.
The dripping ink slithered across another wall.
A second message appeared.
WE WERE WATCHING
The final word had barely formed before it began to distort.
The letters stretched.
Curled.
Twisted.
Until they became a single enormous eye.
It blinked.
Once.
Then stared.
Without moving.
Without blinking again.
Watching.
Watching only her.
The eye slowly melted into liquid darkness.
Ink rushed beneath her feet toward another wall.
A third sentence formed.
WE APPROVE
The words lingered.
Then—
Another line appeared beneath them.
Larger.
Darker.
BUT...
The room fell silent.
The final sentence slowly wrote itself.
ARE YOU WORTHY?
The letters trembled.
Then...
Each character opened.
Not metaphorically.
Literally.
Every letter unfolded into another eye.
One.
Ten.
Hundreds.
Thousands.
They stared together.
Unblinking.
The countless pupils began swaying from side to side.
Left.
Right.
Left.
Right.
Yunxia instinctively followed their movement.
Her breathing slowed.
"..."
Something felt wrong.
Very wrong.
Her vision began losing focus.
"...No."
She immediately shook her head.
Once.
Twice.
She blinked repeatedly before squeezing her eyes shut.
When she opened them again...
The room had reset.
White.
Endless.
Untouched.
"...Again?"
The ink returned.
The same words.
The same messages.
The same eye.
The same question.
This time...
Yunxia didn't fight it.
"They're testing me..."
She whispered.
So she stood still.
The eyes swayed.
She refused to follow.
Seconds passed.
Nothing happened.
Then...
The countless eyes dissolved.
Black ink flowed together.
Compressing.
Shrinking.
Until only a single symbol remained.
♦
It hovered quietly before her.
Then...
It began shrinking.
Smaller.
Smaller.
"...!"
Yunxia's eyes widened.
"The exit!"
She dashed forward.
The diamond rapidly contracted.
Almost disappearing.
At the final instant—
She threw herself through it.
The world shattered.
...
Elsewhere.
Another endless white room.
A young woman looked around nervously.
"What is this place...?"
A black drop slid down her cheek.
It reached the wall.
READ THE WRITING ON THE WALL
Then...
WE WERE WATCHING
The giant eye appeared.
Watching.
Waiting.
The ink flowed once more.
This time...
The third message read differently.
WE DISAPPROVE
The woman's heartbeat quickened.
"W-What...?"
Another sentence slowly formed.
YOU ARE NOT WORTHY
"...No..."
Every letter opened.
Hundreds of eyes stared back at her.
She instinctively shook her head.
Blinking repeatedly.
Trying to break their rhythm.
It didn't matter.
The walls began melting.
White disappeared beneath an ocean of black.
"No!"
The darkness rushed toward her.
She turned.
Ran.
There was nowhere to go.
The void swallowed her whole.
Even her scream vanished.
...
White returned.
Endless.
Empty.
Yunxia stumbled forward.
"..."
The diamond.
The ink.
The eyes.
The figure.
Everything...
Had vanished.
Then—
SKRREEEEEEEEECH!!
A metallic screech ripped through the endless white.
The sound was so sharp that Yunxia instinctively covered her ears.
The entire room shook.
RUMBLE!!
She nearly lost her footing.
The endless white stretched outward.
Invisible walls expanded.
Her room became larger.
Far larger than before.
The trembling finally ceased.
Silence.
Then...
Black ink seeped across the wall.
Not words.
A board.
An enormous board.
At its peak...
Two words slowly appeared.
FINAL RANKING
Names began writing themselves.
One after another.
Beside every name...
A score.
Some names were written in black.
Others...
In crimson.
Yunxia stared quietly.
The crimson names never changed.
Never moved.
Almost...
Like epitaphs carved into stone.
"...Dead."
Her gaze drifted downward.
Then she noticed something stranger.
Several black names...
Had a thick crimson line crossing them.
"...?"
Those names were still changing.
Still alive.
Yet...
Already marked.
Her brows furrowed.
She couldn't understand.
Her eyes continued scanning until—
5. Yunxia — 87
She stopped.
"...Fifth."
Above her...
Four names remained.
1. Arijin Parkash — 96
2. Arthur — 94
3. ...
4. ...
She memorized each one.
Not because of the rankings.
But because surviving this place meant one thing.
Every person above her...
Was someone she might one day have to face.
Below...
Hundreds more names continued filling the board.
Some high-ranking names glowed crimson.
Dead...
Yet still ranked.
Others remained black.
Alive.
And among the lowest ranks...
More and more crimson lines crossed through living names.
The board wasn't simply recording survivors.
It was...
Sorting them.
A cold mechanical voice echoed throughout the endless white.
> "Evaluation complete."
> "Selection process ongoing."
> "Please await further instructions."
The room fell silent once more.
Only the leaderboard remained.
Watching.
Waiting.
Deciding.
Who would live.
Who had died.
And...
Who was still alive...
Only to die later.