Elyndra appeared behind him, her expression resigned as she fluttered closer.
"You'll regret this."
'I know.'
"You're going to die. This reckless plan of yours will get you killed."
'I know that too.'
A pause.
"Is there anything I can do to change your mind?"
'Not that I know of.'
Elyndra let out an annoyed sound. "You're seriously insufferable."
Elias couldn't help the small smile that crept onto his face. When did this tiny gremlin start sounding like she actually cared? It was almost funny. Maybe his charm was finally working—took long enough.
Elyndra clicked her tongue. "Humph! Who even cares about you? It hasn't even been two days, and I'm already this close to getting erased because of your stupid decisions. Just my luck!"
Elias rolled his eyes. 'Keep denying it. Not like anyone's buying it.'
Now that he thought about it, the Silent God was kind of unfair. Elyndra could read his thoughts just fine, but her own mind was completely closed off to him.
Didn't seem very balanced.
Then again... she clearly knew things he wasn't supposed to know yet. So maybe it made sense.
Still annoying.
'I need to stop wasting time.'
He closed his eyes.
There it was again—that faint pull toward the Mirroths drifting in the air. It felt like thin, invisible threads connected him to each of them.
All he had to do was pull.
So he did.
He reached out to one of the red-graded Mirroths, feeling it respond to his call. By the time he opened his eyes, it was already in front of him, its edges pulsing with a red, vein-like glow.
Its surface reflected him like a mirror, constantly rippling, like water disturbed by a drop.
Elias stood, his breathing growing heavier as he took slow, unsteady steps toward it.
This... this was it.
He was really about to do this.
With every step, a faint sense of dread crept in. The Mirroth felt wrong—unsettling in a way that only grew the closer he got.
By the time he stopped right in front of it, sweat had gathered on his face, his teeth clenched tight.
"Elias..." Elyndra called from behind him, her voice no longer as sharp. "Please. There's no going back once you step in. Just—turn back. You still can."
Fuck it.
Shutting out every instinct telling him to stop, Elias lifted his right leg.
And stepped forward.
That was all it took.
The moment his foot crossed the surface, the rest of his body was pulled in before he could react.
And then—
He fell.
Or at least, it felt like falling.
It wasn't the same as when he had entered the black-graded Mirroth before. Back then, he had passed out almost immediately, so he couldn't even remember what it felt like.
At the time, he had been sure he was going to die. Entering a Mirroth—especially as someone unawakened—was basically a death sentence. No exceptions.
But he had been wrong.
It hadn't been death.
It had been a trial.
One that changed his life completely.
However... this was different.
This was a real Mirroth.
One that held Echoforms—monsters that would tear at his sanity and thank him for breakfast.
It was still a trial, but not the kind meant to guide or test gently. This was simple.
Survive or die.
And Elias intended to survive.
The moment he hit solid ground, everything went dark. Not just dim—completely black, like the world had been swallowed whole.
He didn't panic.
This part was expected.
Any second now—
[🎵🎵 Silent Thread, you have entered a Mirroth.]
[🎵🎵 Your Trial is Singing]
[🎵🎵 Before you lies a Horde born from people who died screaming, but they never understood why. Their pain never found meaning, so it became noise.]
[🎵🎵 Defeat the Fractured Howlers.]
[🎵🎵 End their dying screams]
[🎵🎵 Good luck, Silent Thread. Your Trial has Begun]
The darkness slowly peeled away.
Elias stood still, jaw tight, as his surroundings came into view. He was inside a massive cave, wide and open, with jagged stalactites hanging from above and thick stalagmites rising from the ground like pillars of stone.
But that wasn't what hit him first.
It was the sound.
That same warped, unsettling noise—like broken music—slipped straight into his head. It wasn't just something he heard; it pressed in on his thoughts, crawling deeper with every second.
His head throbbed.
His vision wavered slightly.
And before he could steady himself, his body staggered under the weight of it.
That was when he noticed them.
Some were tucked behind rocks. Others clung upside down to the ceiling, wrapped around the stalactites. A few were half-buried in the ground, their heads twisted at odd angles as they... sang.
'What the hell...'
Elias had seen Echoforms before. He already knew they weren't meant to look normal.
But this?
This was something else.
Their bodies—if that's what they could even be called—looked fractured, like broken glass barely holding together. It was as if something beneath their skin kept shifting, never settling. Their limbs bent the wrong way, sticking out at angles that made it hard to even follow how they moved.
Just looking at them felt wrong.
But he didn't have time to dwell on it.
Because they had noticed him.
He felt it before anything else—the weight of it. Dozens of eyes locking onto him at once, like something new had just wandered into their territory.
Something edible.
His chest tightened, his heart slamming hard against his ribs.
Around him, the Fractured Howlers began to turn.
It started with the ones behind the rocks. Then, almost instantly, the awareness spread—fast, too fast. Like a ripple that moved through all of them at once.
The ones buried in the ground twisted toward him, their faces pulling into something that almost looked like smiles.
The ones on the ceiling dropped.
And their cries—
They joined together, layering over each other until the sound filled the entire cave, sharp and warped, drilling straight into his head.
At that moment-
Elias finally realized why Mirrorths were called Broken Hells.