"It… looks like the trial already started," Lin Ling said, voice tight. "And we're stuck here until we finish it."
His eyes drifted to the side, to the scattered bones half-buried along the walls.
"Maybe those skeletons…" He swallowed. "They're people who came in and couldn't get out. They died here. Alone and forgotten."
He shook his head, breathing uneven. "What if we can't finish it? I don't want to end up like that."
Hazy shook her head, almost immediately. "No. That doesn't make sense. Even Sequence 3 experts struggle with domains, and they go in teams of six or more. We're just three… barely Sequence 2 students."
Lian quietly listened as Lin Ling and Hazy continued talking, their voices echoing faintly through the dark corridor.
Things had already gone wrong.
And now they turned deadly.
Just as they were distracted, a massive bird emerged from the sky.
It had an ant-like head, a purple body, and feathers layered over an exoskeleton that looked almost insect-like.
A Carriant—one of the Sequence 3 predators found deep in the forest.
The moment its sound echoed through the area, their instincts kicked in.
They ran straight back into the Catacombs without hesitation.
They started backtracking the same way they came, but the deeper they went, the darker it got—like the catacombs were swallowing the very light itself.
Lian pulled out a torch and flicked it on. They continued walking with the light that barely showed the path in front of them.
No one spoke.
Only footsteps echoed through the stone corridors… and Lin Ling's breathing.
It was getting ragged and unsteady. He was panicking now, tears slipping out as he tried and failed to stay quiet.
His voice cracked. "We're lost… we're actually lost…"
Hazy didn't look any better. Her grip on her weapon was tight, but her hands were shaking, as she kept scanning the dark like something would jump out any second.
But unlike them, Lian stayed completely calm—not because he was brave, or that he didn't fear death. He just didn't really care much between life and death.
He also found himself looking at them differently now.
Both of them were barely fifteen.
In his previous world, when he was fifteen, he spent his days making music, going to school, and spent most of his time doing normal hobbies. But these two were thrown into a world that forced them to fight and to keep moving through fear.
And yet… they hadn't broken.
They were close to cracking under the weight of it all, but neither of them had collapsed yet.
Lian started thinking seriously about a way out.
Then it hit him—late.
This didn't feel like a fragmented domain.
If it were, there would've been rules, trials, messages or some kind of structure left behind.
But this place had none of that. No enemies waiting in ambush, no hidden traps, no guiding signs. Only a maze that seemed to stretch forever.
"I'm pretty sure this isn't a domain," Lian said slowly. "This feels more like a hidden base… or a lab. Something built for illegal experiments."
--
Two days had already passed uneventfully while they are moving through it.
And now their supplies were running low.
Hazy finally asked, "Lian, Do you have any water left?"
"Not much."
Lian paused, then pulled out a large container from sub space.
He set it down.
It was a 25-liter tank.
Hazy stared. "What the heck… you've been carrying that all this time and never said anything?"
Lian said casually. "This barely lasts me three weeks. I always pack extra in case things go extreme."
Lin Ling leaned in after filling his bottle, staring at the container like it didn't make sense. "No way you turned a whole water tank into a rune."
"Yeah," Lian said. "It's not that hard. Just a few modules, some basic spell and enchantments to link it to sub-space. As long as it doesn't exceed a certain size, you can turn most solid objects into runes."
Hazy tapped the oversized lid. "Why's the cap so huge?"
Lian answered like it was common sense. "Backup food storage."
Inside were tightly packed ration bars, dense strips filled with nutrients and supplements.
They each took a bite.
Then—
"…tastes like soil," Hazy muttered.
But hunger crushed any right they had to complain.
--
A couple of hours passed.
They kept walking, and Lian was walking few steps behind them, scribbling in his notebook—the same thing he'd been doing for the past two days.
Lin Ling glanced at him,hope slipping into his voice for the first time in hours. "Did you find anything? Like a pattern… or how this place works?"
Lian replied without looking up "I'm close. If I'm right, then most likely—"
Just as he stepped forward. The ground collapsed under him, and he dropped before anyone could react. By the time Hazy and Lin Ling rushed forward, the floor had already sealed itself like nothing happened.
Lian hit the ground below, breath knocked out of him.
He lay there for a second, then let out a quiet chuckle.
"Yeah… this is just great."
A pause.
Then said in a quiet sigh. "Now I'm definitely ending up as one of those skeletons."
Lian got up and looked around, focusing on the structure.
Lian studied the paths more carefully as he walked. Even if it looked messy at first glance, places like this usually had patterns buried somewhere inside them.
He moved forward, then took a right.
"If my guess is correct, there should be some kind of exit here," he muttered. "Not sure where it leads though. Maybe deeper into the forest. Who knows"
He walked.
And there was no exit.
Instead it opened into a room.
A wide, empty space with a faint blue light spilling out from within.
Lian stopped at the entrance, scanning it.
Maybe there's a hidden path somewhere in this room… something that leads out side.
Every part of him was telling him to walk away.
But he didn't want to miss this chance—who knew when he'd find another way out.
"…Yeah, of course it's always like this."
He activated invisibility and stepped inside.
The room was dim, filled with a low, thick fog that clung to the ground. It was more like a grand hall, the blue light barely holding back the darkness.
He continued forward.
Then his foot pressed into something soft.
He stopped immediately.
"Did I just step on a trap…?"
Lian slowly looked down.
It was a hand.
A human hand, still covered in flesh.
He frowned. "Wait… is this actually human flesh?"
He pulled out medical gloves and crouched down, examining it properly. The tissue felt intact, the bone slightly exposed where the flesh was cut.
"…Something's off."
He looked closer.
"No blood… almost as if it was completely extracted."
Lian took a few steps forward and noticed something pale in the distance, barely visible through the fog. He moved closer, eyes narrowing.
It was a body.
A woman, lying on the floor, completely naked. Both her hands were missing. Her back faced upward, skin stretched tight and pale.
Lian studied it for a moment, then nudged it with his foot, turning it over.
Her face came into view.
Empty eye sockets stared back at him.
He paused, crouching slightly to get a better look. The skin, the tissue—everything was intact.
Except for one thing.
"…No blood."
Not a trace of it.
Lian straightened and moved on, his pace slower now.
He kept walking.
Further ahead, something else came into view.
A massive glass cylinder.
Inside it—
a human body, suspended in a thick orange liquid.
As soon as Lian got close, it started moving.
At first, just a slight twitch.
Then it shook harder, its body jerking in uneven, painful motions, it kept shaking and twitching like something inside it was fighting to break out.
Up close, it barely resembled human. The shape was there—but twisted, stretched, disfigured beyond recognition.
Next to it, he noticed a huge hatch on the floor. Almost twice the size of an ordinary human.
He pulled it open.
Cold air rushed up instantly, sharp and dry. Along with it came a strong chemical smell.
The kind used to preserve tissue.
He climbed down slowly using the huge ladder.
The space below was getting colder.
Rows of storage lined the room. Airtight plastic seals were stacked and arranged in rows. Inside them—human bodies. A few even contained non human parts and organs. Labeled and packed with precision.
Lian felt a bit creeped out, but his expression remained the same. He looked around for a few minutes, but after finding nothing useful, he climbed back up and closed the hatch.
Then turned, looking for somewhere else to go.
Lian kept walking.
After a while, a faint light appeared ahead. He followed it. Step by step, it grew stronger until, within minutes, he reached an exit.
He moved toward it—
and stopped.
Cold.
A sharp chill ran through him.
Snow.
It was snowing outside.
Lian frowned. "Where the hell did I end up…"
His country sat near the equator. Snow didn't exist there.
And yet—
He stepped closer.
He was standing at the edge of an opening carved into the mountain. Below and around him stretched a vast, frozen landscape.
Something old, almost forgotten memory resurfaced.
A memory that had always been there, just out of reach—blurred and incomplete.
Now it snapped into place.
Like an old distant dream suddenly remembered in full.
Lian stared ahead with a smile—
then started laughing loud uncontrollably.